How do you get leaders to be more aware of the importance of recognition and rewards?
Too often, recognition and rewards and the programs you have in place are not top of mind for many people. And when employees themselves are not on board with recognizing others, you know you’ve got a problem.
What does it take to raise the importance and value of recognition and rewards?
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Hopefully, you have a supportive executive leader who acts as your sponsor or champion for the cause of employee recognition where you work. You never want recognition to become out of sight and then out of their mind.
The only reason recognition would ever disappear off of your leader’s radar screen is if you take it off yourself.
That’s why it is so important to help your leaders stay on top of everything that’s going on with employee recognition.
Here are some great ways to keep recognition top of mind for your leaders.
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Each organization, large or small, should have a written recognition strategy to position recognition at the forefront in their organization.
Michael Porter, in his classic Harvard Business Review article, “What Is Strategy?” states that “strategic positioning attempts to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by preserving what is distinctive about a company. It means performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways.”
Naturally, Porter is speaking about a traditional business strategy and not about a recognition strategy.
But what can you learn from the wisdom of Michael Porter? Are there principles you can apply to crafting a recognition strategy? Let’s look carefully at his work. (more…)
Organizations need to do a much better job of aligning recognition practices and programs with the great things their employees do.
The 2017 WorldatWork Trends in Employee Recognition Survey showed that above-and-beyond performance recognition programs were offered by 77 percent of the organizations surveyed. The challenge with above-and-beyond programs is that so few employees can ever be “above-and-beyond” at any one time. This leaves a lot of employees out in the cold, so to speak, from being recognized for positive actions.
WorldatWork results also revealed how only 51 percent of the companies offered programs to motivate specific behaviors.
In the past five years, recognition programs used to motivate specific behaviors, have risen from the fourth most used type of program to now being in the third position. However, even with this apparent popularity rise, behavioral type recognition programs only recognized 25 percent of employees, on average, in the past 12 months of the survey.
How can you, as a recognition program leader, use your recognition programs to consistently reinforce positive behaviors and lift workplace performance? (more…)
You all know the importance and wisdom of creating a written recognition strategy. WorldatWork states 55% of companies have a recognition strategy as of 2017. Of those with a written recognition strategy, 95% of them are aligned with the organizational strategy.
Many things hold companies back from producing such a working document.
Here’s what I have observed as the most common problems. And I will share some ideas with how to solve them. (more…)
Learning about effective employee recognition practices and skills requires developing clear, behaviourally focused learning objectives.
But I find there is a problem in most organizations. When I ask how much focus is given to recognition practices in their leadership or management development curriculum the answer is often zilch.
Or at best they talk about recognition and motivation at the 30,000 feet level with no practical skills, know-how, or insights on how to get better at giving recognition.
Yet these organizational leaders are concerned when employee engagement survey results reveal poor, or at least below average, employee perceptions of the recognition given. (more…)
You have either personally asked or thought about this question, or the leader you report to might have asked you.
“Which recognition program do you start with first?”
Lewis Carroll, in his unforgettable tale of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, gives us a clue to the answer to this question.
The main character, Alice, sees the Cheshire Cat sitting on the bough of a tree and decides to ask it a question.
“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.
“Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—“ said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat
Likewise, you need to take the recognition program road you would like to take. Lead by your company’s purpose, recognition needs and budget realities as well as your own experienced opinion.
And if you don’t have a destination, objective or purpose then I will help you choose one. (more…)
Be careful when expressing recognition not to be too brief.
Statements like “Well done!”, “Great job!”, or “Excellent!”, when left in isolation, may not be enough to create the intended message or feeling of appreciation for a person.
The irony is, while we may think we were perfectly clear by giving such succinct words of praise to a person, recipients may think they can see right through them.
They already know what they did was well done and a great job. That’s exactly what they do every day when they come to work. It’s part of the employer-employee agreement they signed up for when hired – do good work and you’ll get paid the agreed upon wage or salary. They are good people who are honest and care about what they do.
Sometimes we sacrifice clarity in the recognition experience we give to people by being short and sweet.
My recommendation is to look through the glass of recognition carefully and make it much clearer. (more…)
Recognition can help any company achieve their business goals.
I know giving people recognition is not the only thing that elevates performance results, customer satisfaction scores, and profits. However, I do know that recognition is a powerful driver, which can assist with producing the business success you are looking for. (more…)
How much should you spend on employee recognition programs?
You would think it was a simple question to get an answer for. But budget questions often get evasive answers especially from those in the recognition profession and by vendors.
Why is that?
The main trouble is the question itself. People see different things when they hear “recognition budget”. (more…)